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The Collected Stories of Richard Yates

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It's unfathomable why the works of Richard Yates have been out of print for so many years. Every person I recommend him to ends up wanting to read all of his books, asking questions about him I simply can't answer because I know little or any of his bio.

"Is he really that good?" Yes.

Finally, in one collection, are the master's collected stories culled from "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" and "Liars in Love." The book also features additional uncollected stories, which are real treats for any Richard Yates fan (we've been plowing through dusty periodicals in decrepit libraries for these stories for years).

Readers long familiar with 50s writers like Salinger, Cheever, Updike, and later such scions as Tobias Woolf, Richard Ford, and Raymond Carver, will find similar terrain in Yates's stories, with one important distinction: the inimitable voice of Richard Yates. His gift is not with pretty language or literary prose - though that's not to say that he's minimalist - he's much too focused for tricks. Character is his number one concern.

The characters in Yates's world are so real they're frightening. Yates explores their self deceptions, their frailties, their constant attempts to buttress a withering self-esteem by false promises or vain illusions. For instance, "A Glutton for Punishment" - a story about a loserish young man who gets fired from his first "real" job and convinces himself that he won't tell his wife about it until he finds another. The character realizes, though, that it's the very drama of losing that's always been the motivating force of his life.

What sets Yates apart from most writers of his age - or any age - is his heart. It's large, gracious, compassionate without ever being sentimental.

I would go on--but the stories truly speak for themselves.

The publication of this volume is a literary event, akin to Malcolm Cowley's "rediscovery" of William Faulkner. It's time to take Yates off the "writer's writer" list, and make him finally accessible to the general population.

This collection will prove Yates to be one of the greatest American writers of the latter 20th Century. You will not be disappointed, but only scratch your head and say, "Why haven't I heard of this guy?"

*Don't stop here--read "Revolutionary Road," "The Easter Parade," "Cold Spring Harbor" and "A Good School."

The first piece of writing I read by Richard Yates was "The Canal," which was featured in the New Yorker earlier this year, at about the time this collection came out (I'm sure it was entirely coincidental). It wasn't a flashy story, just a tale that's set in the 50's about two couples at a party and the personal embarrassment that ensues as the main character remembers what a woeful soldier he was, especially compared to the decorated soldier to whom he ends up talking for the good part of the night. What I remember best about this story are two moments: one, where the platoon commander tells the main character that he gives him more trouble than anybody else, more trouble than he's worth, and two, the cold ending where nothing is resolved. After reading this story, I read Revoluationary Road and then The Easter Parade (both amazing works), and then came back to finish what I'd started.

"The Canal" is a good story, but it pales against the gems in this collection. Almost all of the stories from the first book, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, are just plain awesome. I'd say outside of "A Wrestler with Sharks" and "The B.A.R. Man," it's perfect. "Dr. Jack-O-Lantern" sets the stage for the black-comedy humiliations all the characters will be forced to endure. Yates spares no one from their designated doom, and boy, is it ever refreshing. The last story, "Builders," ends not as bitterly as the ones preceeding it, a fantastic way to finish the collection.

The second book, Liars in Love, differs from Eleven on both structural- and scope-levels. These stories are fuller and longer, and the histories of the characters more fleshed out -- and yet thematically, they are identical to Eleven: characters' foolish dreams are all squashed, obliterated -- and deservedly so. There are two related stories in this collection that are just laugh-out-loud funny -- one of them is "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired," and the title of the other one escapes me. They both feature the same batty mother, one who is not unlike Pookie of The Easter Parade. The gorgeous image of last story in the collection, "Saying Goodbye to Sally," may leave you in tears, so brace yourself.

The third book is the uncollected stories, and while it's more uneven than the first two, it is still very enjoyable, and for writers, invaluable. It's wonderful to see how some of these stories, like "A Clinical Romance," didn't quite work; finding ways to fix it up is a nice little exercise. Both "An Evening at the Cote d'Azur" and "A Convalescent Ego" are fantastic, right up there with the best of the other two collections.

Richard Russo's introduction is excellent -- his own "Yates story" is a nice personal tie-in, and everything he says is on the mark.

Some might complain that Yates wrote too many stories using the same locale (the TB ward probably being the most prominent repeat offender), but I didn't feel that way. "No Pain Whatsoever" and "Out with the Old" may both take place in the ward, but they are completely different stories. If I had to pick a favorite, it'd probably be "A Glutton for Punishment." What a perfect last line!

Richard Yates succeeds at fulfilling every accolade heaped on his output of writing. This collection of short stories is like owning a full library of novels by one author. Each story, whether familiar to us who have admired this master or newly discovered because of being previously unpublished, place Yates in the rarified air of brilliant American authors. Without the need for flashy technique or creating a Look & Style or preaching to elipitcal minds, Yates spins touching tales simply, clearly, and with a polish that few others can mimic. Yes, his stories are about those parts of our lives that we all usually try to keep private: few of us (or his characters) like to relate our insecurities, disappointments, frustrated dreams. But Yates opens windows for us to view the common man at his most vulnerable, and never once does he offer excuses for the individual's humanity. "We took risks. We knew that we took them. Things have turned out against us" may be the words of a polar explorer, but they so aptly speak to the stoic way Yates' people accept their plights. Praise can be made for every story, no matter how short or how long. Reading this collection of gems is entertaining, but it is also a chance to look at the ordinary world in a more appreciative way. Drop the prejudices. Forget your own bias as to what happiness is. Just get to know these people and you'll get to know yourself in the process. Magnificent addition to every reader's library.

McNally's right, this is what great fiction does. It doesn't pander, it challenges. It doesn't show off, it goes deep. It's heartfelt but never simple. Even in his stories, Yates delivers the complexity of real life--mixed feelings, small victories and dead ends. He writes about people we wouldn't otherwise hear from. Also try his novel Easter Parade or his more famous Revolutionary Road. Both do that hardest thing: they move the reader without tricks.

When soldiers came home from the war, they wanted everything to be normal, and that's just what they got. But buried underneath all the normalcy was human nature, roiling. This is America at its uncomfortable peak.

My favorite stories are about soldiers and veterans--especially the ones taking place at TB wards in VA hospitals. The men who survived the Depression and fought the war are reduced to waiting and coughing in crowded wards, watched over by nurses and doctors. You could almost say, if you went a little too far, that these stories capture the uniformity and sterility of the '50's in a nutshell.

All the accolades describing Yates as a master of the short story form are correct. His work surely deserves a place alongside other greats of the form, including Delmore Schwartz, J. F. Powers, and Alice Munroe, to name a few. He writes about loneliness, ambition and failure better than almost anyone, and is, in the best sense of the word, a writer's writer. But not only can you learn a great deal about writing from him: you also learn a lot about the human heart. The publication of these stories together is a literary event of the first order.

The collected stories of Richard Yates is one of the best short story collections I own. While some may compare Yates style to that of Raymond Carver, I believe Yates had better command of the short story form--with stronger prose to boot. Many of the stories in this collection take place in urban or suburban areas of the U.S. in the 1950's, with the stifling, almost oppressive weight of that decade looming over the characters as the go about their business

A marvelous collection of short stories.
I enjoyed it even more than his outstanding novel,"Revolutionary Road".
Each of these slices of life caused me to recognize the truth of the interactions and the ultimate problems of human communication. As Richard Russo notes in his introduction, Yates focuses on our dreams and aspirations; mostly to be frustrated by the reality of day to day living. I rate this a "must read".

Authors Stewart O'Nan, William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut, Andre Dubus, Tobias Wolff, Richard Ford and Robert Stone, to name a few, have given the work of Richard Yates the highest praise and called him the "voice of a generation." He was once acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate, and technically accomplished writers of America's postwar generation. Yates chronicled mainstream American life from the 1930s through the 1960s. Unfortunately, since his death in 1992, almost all of his work has gone out of print. Now "The Collected Stories of Richard Yates," has been published to the delight of avid fans and lovers of good literature. Yates, called a "writers" writer," deserves more. His prose is meant for a much wider audience. It is accessible, straightforward and wonderfully readable. The gathering together of these 27 brilliant, unsettling, and sometimes heartbreaking stories, filled with grim humor, is cause for celebration.

Most of the stories are set in the 1940s and 50s but they feel like they were written for people in today's world. In one of my favorite stories, "Dr. Jack-o-lantern," Vincent Sabella, a New York City kid with mossy teeth, from a poor neighborhood, moves to the suburbs. He obviously feels like the outsider he is, a state common to many of Yates' characters. He hears a classmate give a report on the movie "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" and uses his fertile imagination to invent a story about a film called "Dr. Jack-o-lantern." Vincent delivers his report, an outlandish version of his classmate's, which is received with outbursts of laughter. His classmates call Vincent a dope and a liar. The reader, along with Vincent, enters what seems like a child's nightmare world. Yates' shows a tremendous understanding of the cruelty and terrors of childhood.

Two working-class lovers realize that their problems won't be solved by their upcoming marriage in "The Best of Everything." Yates' prose is flat here, like the lives of his characters. Hope and resignation permeate the piece. "She tried to sound excited, but it wasn't easy." "Somehow he'd expected more of the Friday before his wedding."

In "The Builders," one of the author's later stories, Robert Prentice, a beginning writer struggling to make ends meet, takes on a ghostwriting job for a New York cab driver. Bernie, the cabbie, contracts him to write true heartwarming stories from life.

Richard Yates writes about middle class people and those who live life on the fringes, troubled kids, disgruntled veterans, lonely shop girls, frustrated suburban housewives, despondent white collar workers and the dark humor of life on a tuberculosis ward. He examines the failed American dream with tremendous compassion. This volume contains stories from Yates' other collections, "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" and "Liars in Love," as well as nine other stories, seven of which have not been previously published. Novelist Richard Russo writes a moving Introduction. This is an extraordinary anthology. Highly recommended.

JANA

Richard Yates is simply an astounding writer. He is also exceptionally accesible. His style is clear and lucid. He is an easy read. He has been praised by everyone from Tennessee Williams to Kurt Vonnegut. Yet he reamins a relative unknown.

A member of the so-called "Greatest Generation," Yates explores the great majority of the WW II generation who do not acheive greatness. His stories with deal with those who passed through the war, surviving but taking part in no great deeds. They deal with those who came back wounded and sick, passing time in Army hospitals. They deal with children and adult children wounded by their upbringing, chasing misguided dreams and failing to reach their dreams because of their own weaknesses. These are great stories about what it is really like to be human.

Yates' characters are flawed people making very poor decisions. Yet Yates is not judging them or society (his characters are more likely to self destruct than to be destroyed by the "system"). He is simply presenting them in a very honest way. They are human, and we see ourselves in them even we least want to.

Yates belongs on the shelf with our greatest writers. Also search out The Easter Parade, Revolutionary Road and his other novels. Only Disturbing the Peace, among his novels, really falls short of the mark.